WEST ORANGE -- Seton Hall Preparatory School wants to expand its athletic facilities, but some environmentalists are decrying the project that would require the leveling of 1,000 trees in a historic area of West Orange once owned by Civil War Gen. George B. McClellan.

For five years, Seton Hall Prep has floated a plan to expand its athletic facilities by building two new baseball fields, two tennis courts, a practice field and parking lot. The construction would come at the expense of about 17 forest acres on the Edward D. and Helen M. Kelly Athletic Complex, situated between the South Mountain and Eagle Rock Reservations. The debate continued Thursday in the eighth zoning board hearing on the plan in about eight months, when Seton Hall brought a planning expert to extol the virtues of the project.

Maplewood-based planner Peter Steck told the board Thursday that Seton Hall Prep's plan would be "inherently beneficial" to West Orange because it would serve a school. He argued that Seton Hall Prep's facilities, which include a football field, a track and a multi-purpose field, are dated and inadequate.

"Private schools have to market themselves to compete with public schools, and athletics is part of a school's identity," Steck said.

Seton Hall Prep's West Orange-based attorney Robert Williams said in a phone interview Friday that the plan will involve leveling 1,000 trees in the area and replacing about 975, with minimal environmental impact.

"Some of the trees coming down are diseased," Williams said. "The impact on the environment is negligible... we're still leaving about 12 acres of natural forest."

But Amy S. Greene Environmental Consultants, a Flemington group that assessed the plan and will testify against Seton Hall Prep at the next zoning board meeting on Oct. 29, argued that the school's impact studies do not take into account endangered animals that live there, including the Indiana bat.

The firm's president Amy Greene said the school, in many cases, is replacing centuries-old trees that have a diameter of 10 inches or more with thinner trees, which is in violation of a West Orange Tree Protection and Removal Ordinance. Many of the trees are around 250 years old.
Believed to have been part of an open field in the mid-1700s, the trees were integrated into an estate owned by McClellan, a Union Army general, before Seton Hall Prep bought the property about a decade ago.

"This is the kind of information that should be included in the school's application," Greene said. "They should have done the research to identify the historic significance of the property."

Kevin Malanga, who lives next door to the property on Ridge Road and has objected to the plan in the meetings, said he has a view from his property and often takes walks there.

"My greatest concern is the environmental impact on the community, not just for us as neighbors but the community's loss of these valuable natural resources," Malanga said.

Zoning board president Robert Neuer said that, though there are only two more hearings scheduled on the plan, there is no telling when the proceedings will end. Seton Hall Prep has called a number of experts and witnesses in front of the board in favor of the plan, including the school's headmaster Michael Kelly.

Williams said that if the zoning board approves, construction will begin shortly after the proceedings.